Contrary to the claims of Marxism, economics does not determine the political structure of a country; rather, the political structure of a country determines its economic system. The Soviet Union was proof of that. In the case of the U.S. government, this can be seen in the adoption . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Category: Vital Signs
Post
The Horrible Politics of “Equality for All”
Equality is a pernicious and dangerous political policy, but that’s exactly what President Obama declared in full voice in his Second Inaugural Address in January as the cause and preoccupation of his administration for the next four years. Of course equality in the abstract is meaningless . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Gay Marriage, Before the Ruling
Justice [Antonin] Scalia: [W]hen did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted? . . . Has it always been unconstitutional? . . . You say it is now unconstitutional. [Theodore Olson, attorney arguing that . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...
Post
Civil War Cinema
Life is short. Although I am a devoted, if amateur, student of Hollywood’s treatment of the great American War of 1861-65, I intended to spare myself the ordeal of Spielberg’s Lincoln. However, the honored editor of America’s bravest and best journal instructed me to go . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Post
From Mothers to Killers
There’s no way a man can sidestep trouble writing about the prospect of women as combat troops. You know, mowing the enemy down with machine guns; blowing up things, not to mention people; cutting, slicing, jabbing, stabbing, whatever it takes. For such is war, the elements little different . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Frost/Nixon
David Frost is a schizophrenic. His creative personality bestrides the Atlantic ocean. When he’s at home in England, Sir David, as he’s known, fronts daytime-television panels and gives splendid summer parties at the country home he shares with his wife, Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard. For many . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Post
Gay Marriage in the Dock
In the 2012 election, same-sex marriage made gains at the ballot box for the first time—however narrowly—in all four states where “marriage equality” was presented to the voters for decision. Have the American people been successfully fooled? Maybe the more germane question is, Are . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...
Post
High Times for Democracy
When George McGovern died, aged 90, two weeks before the last general election, the obituaries rightly praised his long and fitfully distinguished record as a U.S. representative and senator, his years of military service, his plucky presidential campaign against Richard Nixon, and his principled opposition to the Vietnam . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Piltdown Man
Virginia Woolf once wrote that human nature suddenly changed in the year 1912. Such things tend to be at the whim of later generations of critics, but there’s no doubt that the idea of an acceptable form of public entertainment underwent a rude shock in the years just . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Julian Maclaren-Ross
Probably the first thing that ought to be said about the quintessentially flamboyant, hard-drinking, and doomed British author Julian Maclaren-Ross (1912-64) is that he could really write. Anyone familiar with the genre will know that there’s a long if not always proud tradition of debauched . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Post
Homage to Gaudi
Barcelona is one of the great cities of the Mediterranean, and Barcelona’s most noted architect is Antoni Gaudí i Cornet. It is worth visiting Catalonia and the cities of Barcelona and Reus just to see Gaudí’s work. Eager visitors head for his masterpiece, Basílica i Temple . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
To Reach the Limits of Virtue
Commencement speech to the Class of 2012, Veritas Preparatory Academy, Phoenix, Arizona Thank you for allowing me a few moments to address these graduates. I am truly honored. This is an impressive group of young people, so much so that I must admit I am . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Post
Up From Objectivism
It was sort of like being caught in a raging stream, and swimming hard against the current, inch by inch, to reach safety. The time was many years ago, when, as a college freshman, I fell into the currents of liberalism. And they were powerful. Just go with the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Post
In Defence of Poesie
My title, borrowed from Sir Philip Sidney, is deliberately misleading; that is, it does not mean here what he intended when he used it for his posthumous work (1595), known in another edition as The Apologie for Poetrie. In the past, poetry needed no defense—if that means pleas . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Imperial Dusk
Whether it ends with a whimper or a bang, the American Empire is ending. WikiLeaks shows that the empire can no longer control the dissemination of information. Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen show it can no longer militarily defeat insurgencies. Brazil, China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and even Bolivia show it . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Post
Where the South Meets the West
Oh, I’m a good old Rebel, That’s just what I am. And for this damned Republic, I do . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here
Post
Beating the Left at Their Own Game
Leftists love to obsess about hate. It seems to be on their tongues all the time, and it may have already surpassed racist as their expletive of choice to hurl at conservatives, traditionalists, Middle Americans, and other folks they detest. You don’t have to be a psychologist to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
The Revolution That Wasn’t
“A tremendous victory for property rights”—that’s how the Castle Coalition described voter approval of Initiative 31, which placed limitations on the power of eminent domain in Mississippi. The November 8, 2011, results made Mississippi the 44th state to modify the power of eminent domain in response to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Post
Khrushchev Remembers
U.S. President Barack Obama has “Reset” Washington’s relationship with Moscow, seeking to ease Kremlin concerns about Eastern Europe missile defense in exchange for continued U.S. access to Afghanistan over Russian territory. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at her 2009 nomination hearing, paid lip service to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
The Devil and Noah Webster
Within the Detroit metropolitan area, a short drive from gutted buildings and abandoned neighborhoods, one can step into a pre-industrial America, complete with working farms, horse-drawn carriages, and the charming homes of a now-vanished elite. Late in life, Henry Ford carefully refabricated the rural America he . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Duty
Two years ago, in one of the history seminars I offer to homeschoolers, I remarked on Robert E. Lee’s convictions regarding duty. We had just finished reviewing his life—his youth spent as acting head of his small household, his years at West Point both as a cadet . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Post
Thornton Wilder’s Depression
Thornton Wilder met Sigmund Freud in the fall of 1935. Freud had read Wilder’s new novel, Heaven’s My Destination. “‘No seeker after God,’” writes Wilder’s biographer (quoting Freud of himself), “he threw it across the room.” At a later meeting Freud apologized. He objected to Wilder . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Conan Doyle
On the evening of September 7, 1919, 60-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle sat down in a darkened room in Portsmouth, England, to speak with his son Kingsley, who had died in the Spanish-influenza epidemic ten months earlier. “We had strong phenomena from the start,” Conan Doyle later . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Ayn the Antichrist
“If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom He gives it.” —Maurice Baring “Who is John Galt?” again rings throughout the land. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s doorstop novel . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access...
Post
Thomas Wolfe
Sometimes a great book and the place in which it was read combine to cast a spell so potent and so enduring that both book and place become forever entwined in the memory of the reader. Whenever I see a copy of War and Peace, I think . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Post
Faith of Our Forepeople
So, at this big funeral the other day for a local real-estate executive, the congregation is preparing to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Great old hymn, yes? Glad expectations arise. That is, until the second verse: “Christians, we are treading where the saints have trod.” Wait now—didn’t . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Reviving the West: The Case for Europe
In the early years of the current century, confident predictions about the inevitable rise of Europe to a position of world power and influence filled the air over the Atlantic. The recent travails of the European Union have undermined that confidence. The apparent and impending economic collapse of the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Post
An American Family Covenant
“I used to say to my father,” he says, “‘If my class at Yale ran this country, we would have no problems.’ And the irony of my life is that they did.”
Post
Throughly American Healthcare
You would have thought that, at 17 percent of the U.S. economy, the healthcare industry would be much better understood than it apparently is by our Washington brethren. I can’t help but look back and smile at the image of Nancy Pelosi standing at a podium and . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Post
Kings Row Revisited
The first paragraph of the first chapter of John Lukacs’s Confessions of an Original Sinner (1990) concludes, “A conservative will profess a preference for and a trust in Ronald Reagan; a reactionary will not, and not because Reagan was a Hollywood actor but because he never stopped being . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Mohammedans in France
It has been about five years since the young, mostly Berber proletariat of the dingy Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles suburbs took to burning its proletarian neighbors’ cars, and there is a looming feeling among French Catholics that something is still not quite right in the woods. There are indications . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Post
Facts Are Stubborn Things
It took only 22 years after he left the White House for conservatives to turn Ronald Reagan into a totem. The celebrations surrounding his 100th birthday on February 6 made George Washington look like a back-bench legislator. Conservatives hailed Reagan as the apotheosis of political wisdom and prudent . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Christophobia and Its Discontents
During Pope Benedict’s 2010 visit to Britain, the English philosopher Roger Scruton provided an apt description of the country’s true religion: The official culture, represented by the BBC, the TV chat shows and the opinion pages of the quality press, is . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain...
Post
Bury Me With My People
There he was, Abraham Lincoln in a Confederate Army cap, staring out of the page of an old Courier-Journal. I had been looking for something else when I happened upon this collateral descendant of the 16th president, photographed in front of the obelisk that is the Jefferson Davis . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Cutting Our Teeth On Twilight
To date, Stephenie Meyer’s young-adult novels about a teenage girl (Bella Swan) and her vampire boyfriend (Edward Cullen) have sold well over 100 million copies worldwide, and the movie versions are still coming. When a phenomenon is of this scale it doesn’t matter what a book . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Politics Against Nature
As I write, the lame-duck Congress is revving up for one last chance to do really lasting damage to the country, in the form of the cloyingly titled DREAM Act, which would grant an open-ended amnesty to illegal aliens who were brought here as children by their . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Post
Our Elitists Forge a Useful Faith
The cynical elites of Ancient Rome, said Edward Gibbon, found the religions of the empire equally false and equally useful. The leftist/corporate elites of our time also agree that religion is false, so much so that they can barely contain their contempt for it. As Barack Obama opined . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Mortgages From Hell
A mortgage crisis still haunts the country like a credit collector calling you daily about your unpaid Visa bill. It’s harder to get a mortgage than it has been in the memory of anyone living. The banks “only accept the best credit now for a loan,” a mortgage . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Christophobia, Communist and Otherwise
Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev has recently warned Europeans of the dangers of building a completely atheist and secularized society. That was the situation in Eastern Europe under communism. Some of the methods may have been different, but the outcome is the same: the notion of God is expelled from . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Post
Which Way for Rand Paul?
Of all the Republican successes in the midterm elections, perhaps none has the potential to be as consequential as the elevation of Rand Paul to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Paul was the biggest and most genuine Tea Party triumph in November. As the son and ideological heir . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Post
Hitting the Wall
On October 8, Americans awoke to government reports that the domestic economy had shed another 95,000 jobs in September. Despite the billions of dollars mailed to select citizens in the form of stimulus checks and the politicized bailouts of protected industries, U.S. policymakers have failed . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Post
Top—Heavy Schools
It was another day, you know—back when President James A. Garfield could define a university as “Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.” Which was to say, a great teacher—Hopkins being the renowned president of Williams College—needed . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...
Post
The Borrower’s Crisis
Like the mindless day traders of the 1990’s who piled into the same hot internet stocks, today’s commentators on the causes of 2008’s residential-real-estate implosion have exhibited a similar obtuseness regarding the workings of financial markets. One will search in vain for . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and...
Post
On the Sullivan Translation of David, Part II
This is the second part of a speech on poet Alan Sullivan that Timothy Murphy has delivered to Catholic and Protestant congregations on the High Plains. (The first part appeared in the October issue.) Mr. Sullivan, a frequent contributor to Chronicles, died on July 9, right . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Collegiate Bread and Circuses
Ah, the good ol’ days! If only they were as frolicsome and fulfilling as they commonly seem in the rearview mirror! All that notwithstanding, the shaky balance that, in university settings, once seemed to prevail between academics and athletics gives the past a certain golden glow.
Post
Goodbye to Gold and Glory
“A crocodile has been worshipped, and its priesthood have asserted, that morality required the people to suffer themselves to be eaten by a crocodile.” —John Taylor of Caroline “The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to...
Post
On the Sullivan Translation of David
This is the first part of a speech Timothy Murphy has delivered to Catholic and Protestant congregations on the High Plains. The second part will appear in a subsequent issue. Alan Sullivan, a frequent contributor to Chronicles, died on July 9, right after finishing his last . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Post
Terminating an Unwanted Parentcy
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES On Writ of Certiorari to the Court of Appeals June 21, 2017 Justice Breyer delivered the Opinion of the Court. Sheila X is a single woman living . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive...
Post
Atomic Anniversary
Sixty-five years ago, on August 6, the United States dropped the first offensive nuclear weapon in history. This bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan. The U.S. military dropped the second and last nuclear weapon ever used in war . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article...
Post
That Election
The Cabinet Office in London’s Whitehall is not generally a hotbed of tourist activity. The building’s squat, granite façade is screened from public view by a somehow incongruously lush row of elm trees, and, within, it’s a warren of nondescript, government-furnished . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain...